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demodramafaces
Demodrama is an ongoing project that explores the creation of sets based on expanded masks so that the masks themselves become moving frames for video and images that take the place on the actor’s face. The images project onto the masks on stage in real time, allowing the superimposing of digital faces onto a physical body and the defining of different ways of interaction between them. This interaction could consist of sound (voice), the actor's gestures, or even the facial transplant of actors or external users onto the mask.
Demodrama Faces was born as a specific project but is currently conceived as a collective project and investigation platform. Some of us work regularly, others occasionally.
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Demodrama Faces
A Japanese actor played by an actress in Madrid in real time? A video that comes alive on a performer’s face? An audience lending their own expressions to the characters of a play? Here mask, one of the oldest theatre devices, becomes the trigger of a exploration within technological possibilities applicable to the stage.
Demodrama Faces (www.tea-tron.com/demodrama) is an open source technological tool used for stage innovation. What it produces is staging based on interactive and magnified masks, where masks themselves become mobile frames for picture and video that replace actors' faces. The projected images follow the masks on set in real time, allowing us to superimpose digital faces onto a physical body and define different forms of interaction: by sound (voice), performer’s body language and gestures, or even facial transplants from external actors or users.
In spite of a such a specific proposal, this tool allows a wide range of possibilities and applications in such a way that, depending on which creators work with it (be it video-artists, dancers, graphic designers, etc.), very different results can be obtained.
Furthermore, it allows the staging of plays that investigate the medium of the mask itself or performers' and audiences' roles, who become part of the piece. This tool, due to its open nature, is available for all those people or institutions who could be interested in its application to different fields or its continued development.
Our early experience at the multimedia centre Kër Thiossane (bit.ly/HU6x5i) in Dakar, Senegal, a digital masks workshop given by Senegalese technicians and artists, has taken us to consider new challenges for this project:
>> To create a software to make code accessibility, and its technical data, more efficient, which means that every single person or group who want to, could adjust this tool and continue developing it in an autonomous way.
>>To start a shared and demodramatic creation network which provides visibility to developed stage strategies, methodology, contents and results, through a web and other communication media.
A long path full of enthusiasm for which we would like to count on the collaboration of those who might be interested.
Demodrama Faces (www.tea-tron.com/demodrama) is an open source technological tool used for stage innovation. What it produces is staging based on interactive and magnified masks, where masks themselves become mobile frames for picture and video that replace actors' faces. The projected images follow the masks on set in real time, allowing us to superimpose digital faces onto a physical body and define different forms of interaction: by sound (voice), performer’s body language and gestures, or even facial transplants from external actors or users.
In spite of a such a specific proposal, this tool allows a wide range of possibilities and applications in such a way that, depending on which creators work with it (be it video-artists, dancers, graphic designers, etc.), very different results can be obtained.
Furthermore, it allows the staging of plays that investigate the medium of the mask itself or performers' and audiences' roles, who become part of the piece. This tool, due to its open nature, is available for all those people or institutions who could be interested in its application to different fields or its continued development.
Our early experience at the multimedia centre Kër Thiossane (bit.ly/HU6x5i) in Dakar, Senegal, a digital masks workshop given by Senegalese technicians and artists, has taken us to consider new challenges for this project:
>> To create a software to make code accessibility, and its technical data, more efficient, which means that every single person or group who want to, could adjust this tool and continue developing it in an autonomous way.
>>To start a shared and demodramatic creation network which provides visibility to developed stage strategies, methodology, contents and results, through a web and other communication media.
A long path full of enthusiasm for which we would like to count on the collaboration of those who might be interested.
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Main features
The computer vision technology used in this project allows the detection and tracking of marks made with reflective materials, a technique used in the digital production of 3D animation for films and videogames, but in its low-cost application.This technological system consists of a computer vision subsystem (which will track the masks) and a subsystem that generates the visual contents that form Demo-Drama. For the tracking, we have used OpenSource CCV 1.2 software, which communicates with the contents management through TUIO; for the build-up of contents we have used Processing.
While developing the tool, it was decided to use the Eclipse integrated environment, because of the advantages it provides for developing in Java. The main problem during the building of Demo-Drama developed as the first prototype, occurred when handling multiple scenes in the environment offered by Processing.
To simplify this task, we decided to create different classes where we could delegate responsibility when managing different effects and scenes, as listeners. This way, the scalability and handling of the project is simplified by treating each part of the content separately.
More information at Medialab Prado wiki: bit.ly/IunbrZ
Why this is important
Demodrama Faces platform is open to everyone, collective or institution interested in investigating the application of new technologies in dramatic arts through the digital mask tool.This is an open work group formed by people with diverse profiles (programmers, set designers, actors, graphic designers) who collaborate continuously or intensively on certain occasions, both in person or virtually. For this reason, we welcome all contributions: technical support, content creation or project diffusion.
We want to find new uses for this tool together, especially in its pedagogical and creative aspects. And, since it is a free tool and its code will be published in GPL, other people anywhere in the world will be able to look into and keep on developing it. Its philosophy is based on low-cost and DIY, so it is quite cheap to assemble the installation necessary for the stage.
Goals of the crowdfunding campaign
Short term:- to remake the open source software (DemoScene) improving the system, so everyone can use it easily.
- to seat the first “Demodramatic place” in Dakar (Senegal) collaborating in the creation of different plays made with with DemoScene technologies that would be presented during Afropixel Festival (May 2012) (bit.ly/JbdW1Q)
- to consolidate a work methodology for future workshops, that would be also available in document form.
Long term:
- to create a net of “demodramatic places”, available anywhere, using the software DemoScene.
- to create a cybernetic environment where plays made during the Afropixel Festival can be shown
- to consolidate a collaborators' network linked to the project
- to promote the communication and diffusion of the Project on a website, that includes a software repository and an archive with scenic and visual contents.
- to continue experimenting with the tools in order to create new scenic pieces and projects.
